Underwater noise due to rain, hail, and snow

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Abstract
The spectra of underwater noise generated by rain,hail, and snow have been measured in a lake at a depth of 35 m, for a variety of atmospheric conditions. Rainnoise spectra, for light winds (<1.2 m s− 1), have a sharp peak at 13.5 kHz with a steep falloff (∼60 dB/oct) on the low‐frequency side and a more gradual falloff (9 dB/oct) on the high‐frequency side. A quasi‐flat spectral regime exists in the frequency interval 2–10 kHz. Wind, for speeds increasing above 1.2 m s− 1, progressively rounds the peak. The spectral level at 15 kHz (i.e., near the peak) shows a linear dependence on the log of the rain rate with wind speed as a parameter. Correlation of the rainnoise spectra with raindrop‐size distributions suggests that low frequencies are generated by the larger drops, although this aspect of the problem needs further work. Hailnoise spectra have rounded maxima appearing between 2 and 5 kHz with an approximately 10‐dB falloff on each side. The spectrum of underwater soundgenerated by gently falling snow shows a linear increase in level, averaging 5 dB/oct, when plotted against the log of frequency.

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